Monthly Archives: October 2011

Often in life we meet people who tell us why something can’t be done. On October 3rd, we met a woman who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “can’t.”

Sister Carolyn Kosub, ICM, truly believes that with God, all things are possible.

Sisters Mary Catherine (left) and Carolyn Kosub (right).

On Catholic Extension’s recent trip to the Diocese of Brownsville in Texas, we stopped in the city of Penitas to visit with some Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The group of sisters has established Proyecto Desarrollo Humano, which translates to “The Human Development Project.” We were there to not only witness their amazing work, but also to give them a gift from the first grade class of St. Francis Xavier Warde School in Chicago: a check for $3,800, money the students raised through their own efforts.

Brownsville, the southernmost diocese in Texas, is on the Gulf of Mexico at the Mexican border. Of the over one million people in the diocese, 85% are Catholic. There is only one priest for every 9,000 Catholics! Many parishes have one or more mission churches; so priests celebrate Mass each Sunday in three or four different churches. Despite the lack of priests, every person we talked to said they were grateful for their priest.

Staff and volunteers at Proyecto Desarrollo Humano accept a donation from the first grade class of St. Francis Xavier Warde School in Chicago.

Proyecto Desarrollo Humano is located in a poor neighborhood known as a colonia. Many colonias are destitute, with tiny makeshift houses built on cinderblocks and in disrepair. Yet when we pulled up to Proyecto Desarrollo Humano, we found a beautiful, bright yellow building. It was a sign of hope in the middle of the colonia.

Before Sister Carolyn gave us a tour of the facility, she told us the story of how Proyecto began. Years earlier, while she and some other sisters were working in nearby parishes, they had a dream of “combining their forces” and together serving a new community in need. They sent one of the sisters to travel around the country for a year and search for the perfect place for them to start their ministry. She chose Penitas. When they started the Proyecto, they spent days walking around the colonia, talking to the people to find out what services they needed most.

In 2004 they built the front part of their building, a large hall with a kitchen. In the beginning, this hall was used for everything: classes, meetings, social gatherings and even Sunday Mass. A few years later the building was expanded to provide much more space. When we arrived, a group of women from the neighborhood were finishing an exercise class. Sister Carolyn said that obesity is a real issue in the community; so in addition to exercise classes, they offer nutrition classes and have started a community garden project so people can grow their own vegetables.

Sister Pat McGraw teaches ESL classes.

In fact, much of the sisters’ work is centered around empowering the women of the community. The facility has a sewing room, where women not only learn to sew their own clothes and things they need for their homes, but also spend time talking and supporting one another. These efforts are paying off. Sister Carolyn said that she has “noticed the women standing taller and holding their heads up.”

When the sisters asked the people of the community what they needed most, they said: “Please help our children with their school work.” In response, the sisters added a computer room for children to do their homework, and tutoring in the afternoons. English Second Language (ESL) classes are also offered for the adults.

Doctors and dentists regularly volunteer their time at the clinic.

Sister Carolyn was proudest to show us their clinic, a beautiful room in the back of the building that has everything they need to provide medical care for the people of the community. Doctors and dentists volunteer to work on their days off, to care for these people who cannot afford health care. All of these programs have been created since 2004!

Just when we thought we had seen it all, Sister Carolyn took us to see the new church, which was built in 2009. Again, this was what the people of the community wanted: to celebrate Mass in a real church. So once again, with the help of generous donors and people in the community rallying together, the sisters made it happen. We saw a gorgeous mission church, which is already too crowded at Mass and which hosts religious education classes.

It is ministries like Proyecto Desarrollo Humano that Catholic Extension supports. Sister Carolyn and the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary put their faith in action serving those in need, every day.

I just spent a couple of days in southern Texas in the Diocese of Brownsville—the most densely Catholic diocese in the nation. As much as 85% of the population belongs to the Catholic Church, and some estimate that the diocese has tripled in population since 1980. As our group made our way to various parishes along the Rio Grande on the U.S.-Mexico border, I was struck not only by the great legacy that Catholic Extension has in this area, but also the great opportunity we have to do so much more.

We visited St. Eugene, a mission parish located in a residential neighborhood in the city of Brownsville. In an unexpected presentation from Rev. Timothy W. Paulsen, OMI, he showed us a picture from 1911, of Catholic Extension’s founders standing with a group of Texas missionaries on horseback. Together, they were celebrating the groundbreaking of the first church in the diocese. Over the years, with the help of Catholic Extension, the Catholic Church has continued to grow throughout the Valley.

This unassuming mission church is a force of change in Lopezville.

St. Eugene’s parish, which currently receives small salary subsidies from Catholic Extension, is a microcosm of that larger story of growth. In the early 1970s, the parish began in a small trailer, where they celebrated Mass and held religious education classes. The community outgrew the trailer, and in 1990 it built a larger facility with Catholic Extension’s support. Twenty-one years later, the parish has grown even more, along with its various social outreaches to the neighborhood. With this continued growth comes the need for a larger church. Over 1,000 people attend their standing-room-only Masses on Sundays, and more than 400 kids are enrolled in their religious education program. Though these numbers are great, the parishioners believe they can still reach so many more people. The purpose of our visit was to learn more about how Catholic Extension can partner with this parish to make the dream for more space and more outreach a reality.

Up the river, we visited parishioners from Immaculate Conception in Lopezville, Texas, a mission where Catholic Extension provides support for ministries to youth and families. Lopezville is an unincorporated residential area outside of McAllen, Texas. The church is a small wooden chapel with a charming steeple. Based on its size, it would be hard to guess that hundreds of people attend Sunday Masses there, and somewhere between 100 and 200 kids receive religious education.

Josefa, a parishioner of Immaculate Conception since 1958, is committed to her church and neighborhood.

Father Jerry, the pastor of Immaculate Conception, took us for a tour through the neighborhood. One couldn’t help but notice the blight: the graffiti; the flimsy trailers precariously stilted atop cinder blocks; the houses falling apart; the crudely erected chain-link fences surrounding each house; the junk strewn about the yards; and the howling dogs on guard duty at each property, suspicious of anyone walking the streets..

Father Jerry worries about the young people in this neighborhood because of the presence of local gangs. One parishioner, Josefa, who has lived in the area since 1958, worries about the lack of lighting in the neighborhood. Another parishioner, Elisa, worries about the people around her living in abject poverty—her neighbor, who cares for two bedridden children, is confined to a 10 x 10 room.

A loose dog, prowls the streets of Lopezville.

While the problems run deep in Lopezville, so does the Catholic faith and the conviction that something can be done. Parishioners individually told us about their decades-long commitment to their community. They continue to have bold visions about how the Church can leverage itself to inspire hope and ignite change in their neighborhood. While they still have much to accomplish, they have all been encouraged by the progress that they’ve already achieved. They advocated for a sewage system in the neighborhood and achieved it. They asked for a greater police presence and achieved it. They helped many young people go on to live successful lives because the Church gave them purpose, values and community.

Juan, a native of Lopezville, and parishioner of Immaculate Conception Mission.

One parishioner, Juan José, who now works for the Hidalgo county sheriff, said that he and his peers are the tangible results that have come from Immaculate Conception. As a young person, the realities of his neighborhood were inescapable. He recalled witnessing a shooting. Yet he says that he and his peers, who grew up in the neighborhood and attended the parish felt the goodness of this Church, and it stayed inside them.

The people of the Diocese of Brownsville see firsthand what the transformative power of faith in the community can do in people’s lives, and they continue to be emboldened to ignite change and do great things.

“This is what Church is really about,” Father Jack Wall commented to me, as a team from Catholic Extension experienced eastern Oklahoma, where the Catholic Church is growing exponentially.

We met with the spirited parishioners of San Juan Diego Mission in Stilwell, Oklahoma, a community that gathers in a simple storage unit, but whose visible desire to live their faith and build a bright future for their children is their most distinguishing characteristic.

Parishioners show their spirit with a song.

The front portion of their rented storage unit serves as their “church,” a place they’ve called home for all nine years of the community’s existence. The cloth on their donated pews is a retina-burning, bright yellow—worn out hand-me-downs dating back to at least the mid-1970s. The church retains a musty odor, because when it rains the roof serves as nothing more than a sieve. Parishioners must celebrate Mass amid buckets to collect the rain water. In the back of the storage unit—an area that looks akin to my garage—is the parish’s “community and religious education center.” There is no air conditioning, so parishioners endure the blistering, 100-plus degree Oklahoma summers, as well as the cold winters.

But, cosmetics aside, this church has all the elements needed to be successful: the people have vision, faith, passion, a sense of community, a strong worth ethic and youthfulness.

When the church opened its doors in April 2002, there were only about 23 families gathering for Mass. Now, not even a decade later, and still without the benefit of a resident priest or adequate physical space, their community has grown to 300 families strong, or about 1,000 people.

Fr. Jack Wall, president of Catholic Extension, shares pozole with parishioners in their garage-like community center.

On the evening that we visited, parishioners packed into every nook of their humble space, sharing with us a bowl of pozole and some words of welcome.

I noticed the innumerable babies and toddlers, and the throngs of teenagers seated in the church. Antonio Garcia, CCD Coordinator for the parish, stood up and conveyed the ultimate vision they all share for the parish: “Here, our youth and our children are our priority.”

Parishioners informed us that they are seeking Catholic Extension’s help to develop a peer ministry and faith formation program that will help keep teens close to the Church. The lure of drugs and a life on the streets are constant dangers that youth and parents often alluded to during our conversation.

Several parishioners shared with us how important their faith was to them, as well as their faith community. “When one of us suffers, we all suffer,” added one person.

In the future, they also hope to build a church with Catholic Extension’s support, so that they can be a more visible presence in their community. They’ve been selling tamales and raising money to support their dream of one day having a more dignified place to call home, and have collected about $40,000 to date, a significant accomplishment for this under-resourced community. Both in the near- and long-terms, Catholic Extension will continue to work through the Diocese of Tulsa to support the youth of this area, and continue the dialogue about their need for physical space.

Parish teens show their pride with their uniformed look. They express desire to stay close to the Church.

After we left Stilwell, I made this realization: no matter how many communities I visit, I never cease to be amazed by the deep faith and level of commitment of the Catholics that I encounter. I marvel at how those with so little on the surface are really so incredibly rich.

The courageous people of Stilwell can teach something to the rest of the Church about what it means to be a Catholic. They teach that the gift of faith is truly the only gift that we actually need. That faith enables us to do all things passionately, practically, and with great perseverance. The Catholic community of Stillwell should give us all hope for the future, because they teach that no obstacle is too great for people who stand ready to live their faith and answer the call to serve.

We arrived at St. John the Evangelist University Parish and Newman Center, at Oklahoma State University, at 8AM. OSU has had a relationship with Catholic Extension since 1977; and this coming January, the OSU Campus Ministry will be receiving another grant from Catholic Extension. But we were also eager to meet these dynamic college students to see if we could connect them with leadership roles in the Church after graduation.

Our plan was to meet with Fr. Stuart Crevcoure and some of his campus ministry staff, as well as some of the college students who are active in campus ministry at OSU. I had my doubts as to how many students would show up for an 8AM meeting! Remembering my own college days, anything before 9AM was considered to be the crack of dawn.

Fr. Stuart Crevcoure and Fr. Jack Wall, with some of the students who are active in Campus Ministry at OSU.

Yet when we arrived, there were 15 college students already there! Not only were they awake, but they were smiling and eager to welcome us. Just their presence at that breakfast meeting was a witness to how important their Catholic faith is to them. Yet as we listened to their stories, we were even more moved by their passion for their faith and their desire to share their faith with other students at OSU.

The Newman Center sponsors a vast number of opportunities for faith sharing and fellowship: they have Bible Study, Rosary, Wednesday night Mass, and Praise and Worship to name a few. But what’s more incredible is the number of students who come every Sunday night for Mass, followed by dinner. They told us that a couple hundred students show up every week and that number grows during the school year! Many of the students who come aren’t even Catholic but have been invited by friends.

That’s what ran through all of the students’ stories about how they got involved with Campus Ministry at OSU – someone had invited them. Michael, a freshman from Wichita, said, “When I started here a few weeks ago, Anna, who is also from my home town, invited me to come along to Mass and so I did.” Many of the students credited Jenny, a senior, as having called them and asked them to come with her to Mass. To be invited, to be called by name, is so important to all of us, but it’s crucial for young adults. They need to feel welcomed, that their being there matters. It starts with being in relationship with others, making a friend, and then inviting that friend to come share in the faith that you have found. That was the model Jesus gave us, and these students are still following it. Every student there credited another student with getting them involved in Campus Ministry. Many students also mentioned Kelly, a former seminarian who is now ordained, as the reason they are so active in their faith.

Jenny and other students active in Campus Ministry at OSU.

A lot of the students told us about growing up in rural parts of Oklahoma, Iowa, and Kansas, where they were a part of the only Catholic family in town. I’m from the Northeast, where there are large numbers of Catholics, so it was foreign to me to imagine what it would be like to grow up in the minority, in a place where you weren’t invited to certain events because you were Catholic. But what struck me was that it was that experience of being in the minority that made these young Catholic men and women stronger in their faith, more articulate about what they believe in, more eager to be in community with others who shared their faith. They even volunteered to staff an “Ask a Catholic” table outside the student center at OSU, so that they could invite other students to learn about their faith.

Andrew received his Confirmation while attending OSU this year.

Many people talk about the young people being the future of our church. But in reality, they are the church. Right here, right now. It is up to us to do whatever we can to help support young adults like these students at OSU, so that they can grow in their faith while they are in college; and so that they are able to continue to grow in their faith after graduation, as young adults. Fr. Stuart pointed out to us a large tree that they had painted on their wall, with paper leaves attached to it. Each leaf had the name of a student who had been baptized or confirmed over the past year. Through Catholic Extension, we can help the number of leaves on that tree grow, at OSU and at other colleges across the country.